Right now I am hard at work on ways to expand my products’ market, so I have been doing lots of mostly tedious researchy things in order to find good advertizing venues, figure out an advertizing budget, and put together promotional materials. I have found at least one site I would like to advertize with, that uses Project Wonderful, but I haven’t yet put a good banner together. Google AdWords gave me $50 free to advertize with them, so I’ve done that as well, with a small budget there to see how it goes.

I am also doing my first craft fair in July! One of the members of the SFEtsy Street Team is holding a small craft sale in her yard at 17301 E. Vineland Ave, Los Gatos, CA, on July 26, 11am-3pm, and I’m one of the 12 people selling there! Please check out this lovely Handcrafters’ Faire flyer for all the details!

Working on making a new shop banner, avatar, ads and business cards is very difficult for me. I have the skills necessary to do it, but I think like an artist, not a graphic designer, so it’s quite challenging for me to conceptualize this sort of thing. It’s a work in progress. At least I know where I’m getting my business cards now (Overnight Prints), so that’s a step in the right direction.

I am, happily, also working on new things, but my other business/hobby has been taking lots of time away from my ceramics. Nevertheless, my shop is now sporting some new wee little housewares, along with a new listing for custom-made ceramic rings, in any size you like! I’m very very excited about the latter.

In the past month or so I’ve been doing a lot of “behind the scenes” stuff. I’ve made some absolutely adorable animal miniatures, lots and lots more beads and rings, created many new molds and produced lots of buttons from them, and I’ve also gotten a set of tiny little letter stamps so I can start making personalized rings and rings with phrases on them. Whee!

So, I shall be turning my attention more to this blog once I’m not being required to spend so much time on the computer doing researchy and designery things. I get very burnt out on sitting in front of the computer and there’s so many other great things I could be doing!

And I’m mostly done with a bunch of stuff: I have a whole tray full of beads and other doodads waiting to be bisque-fired, and some other goodies that need to be glazed and/or go through their final firing. I also have some things that are ready to be listed and are just waiting for me to take photos, price them, etc.

And I’m mostly done making myself a new teapot, too! My first teapot. It’s sitting there drying on the shelf, and I’m so excited!

Starting next week, I think, I’ll start doing some item reviews, crafty interviews, and/or something along those lines. We’ll see!

I’m still working on the layout for this blog–need a better photo to use for the header image.

Speaking of photos, the last two days I’ve been doing a drawing to use as a promotional postcard for my store. Yesterday I got it scanned in, cleaned it up, and added some text. Today I did some last-minute touch-ups. I always end up drawing too many lines on my pen and ink drawings, it seems.

Anyway, here it is:

Now time to get back to that mug…